


it's like the sun came out

by ironarana



Category: Iron Man - All Media Types, Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: 5+1, Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Howard Stark's A+ Parenting, Hurt/Comfort, Post Captain America: Civil War, Post Spider-Man: Homecoming, TEARS SO MANY TEARS, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, but peter doesn't commit it, just in case you guys wanted to know that, tw anxiety, tw implied/referenced suicide, tw mild depression, tw suicide, tw suicide attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-24
Updated: 2019-10-28
Packaged: 2020-07-19 03:14:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 17,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19967107
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ironarana/pseuds/ironarana
Summary: And when Peter smiles, Tony swears it's like the sun comes out.Or five times Peter made Tony smile and one time Tony made Peter smile.





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> first try at a 5+1, i hope you guys enjoy! title from gabrielle aplin's song "start of time". also TW: SUICIDE ATTEMPT, ANXIETY AND MILD DEPRESSION. PLEASE DON'T READ IF THESE SUBJECTS ARE TRIGGERING.

There is something to be said about sleepless nights: they’re like circles. 

Tony doesn’t know when they started or when they will end. They seem to go on and on and he can’t remember the last time he closed his eyes and awoke to see the sun rise outside his window. He knows he’s bordering dangerously on insomnia and it’s only a matter of time before he inevitably crashes. 

And it’s not like he hasn’t tried. But every time he closes his eyes all he can see is a shield glinting, snow fluttering gently around him, the cold bitter and the sting of betrayal fresh as the blood filling his mouth. All he can feel is the rattle of the armor around his body as the shield is slammed down into his chest. 

Sometimes he can still taste the blood in his mouth. 

One night, after he has spent too much time connecting the dots on his ceiling and pretending they’re constellations, and after he has spent too much time tossing and turning and struggling through the night, he grows tired of fighting for sleep since it seems like it won’t come to him willingly. With a heavy, exasperated sigh, he throws back the covers and decides to head downstairs to the lab. 

His movements are slow and require more effort than they would if he was properly rested. But he makes it to the elevator, albeit with his veins feeling like they’ve been flooded with lead, and he rides it downstairs to his private lab. 

The lights rise automatically open the doors sliding open. DUM-E and the others whir to life and their clamps follow him watchfully as he staggers in, sliding onto a stool by a desk. 

“Hey, FRIDAY,” he says, tongue thick in his mouth. He yawns, stretching his arms widely. 

“Good evening, Boss,” she replies. “So what will it be tonight?” 

Tony’s eyes begin to droop and he shakes his head, the glinting, bloodstained shield rearing its ugly head. “Uh, bring up the Baby Monitor footage please.” 

“Of course. Retrieving recent Baby Monitor footage now.” 

It takes a second but once the progress bar finishes loading, Tony watches the footage play, beginning in early afternoon. He sees it all like he’s Peter himself, swinging through the streets of Manhattan. 

He sorely wishes he could see through Peter’s eyes, in more ways than one. 

As he watches the city rush by in a blur, all he can think about is how Peter’s outlook on life is drastically different than his own. It’s so full of color and life and rising suns and an optimism Tony used to have until it was drowned out by pragmatism and too many drunken outrages from his father.  
In a way, Peter is who he wishes he could’ve been when he was younger, and who he wishes he is now. 

Tony listens to Peter’s quips filter through the sound system as he takes down an attempted bodega robbery in record time. Then later he’s laughing to himself as he rescues a cat from a tree and exclaiming, “Oh my God, you’re so fluffy!” 

It brings a small, half hearted tilt to Tony’s lips in an almost smile as he watches the grateful owner thank Peter tearily while he insists it’s no big deal and that he loves cats. Then he swings away and into an uneventful evening. 

He eats dinner and calls Happy to deliver his nightly report. Tony listened to the voicemails earlier, Happy having forwarded them like always, but he listens again and tries to take note of how Peter’s voice pitches high and how he talks faster and with stutters when he’s excited. It’s endearing, truly, and Tony thinks he could listen to Peter talk forever. 

After he calls Happy and finishes dinner, he’s about to swing home when he catches sight of something in the distance. Karen zooms in for him and Tony’s stomach drops when he sees a shadow perched on the edge of a bridge overlooking the river. 

“Oh my God,” Peter murmurs to himself and then leaps into action, buildings flying past him. Tony is on the edge of his seat with anticipation, mind racing and wondering if he should just call Peter now to find out how it ended, if she’s okay. 

Peter lands a good distance away so as not to startle her and tentatively, he calls out, “Uh, excuse me, miss? Is everything okay?” 

She turns around with wide, startled green eyes and Karen begins to run facial recognition, filtering through possibilities on the right side of the screen. 

The girl nods vehemently. “Yeah,” she calls back, “everything is fine.” 

Tony hears it: the break in her voice on the last word. Maybe Peter hears it too because then he says, “Are you sure? Cause-” he gestures to the railing of the bridge she’s sitting on “-you know, this is kinda dangerous.” 

She doesn’t reply. Her small, button nose wrinkles with a sniffle as she turns around to face the river, straight blonde hair fluttering over her shoulder. 

Peter takes a step forward. Just one. With a calm, even tone, he says, “Can I ask what your name is?” 

Just as Karen finds her picture in the database and feeds Peter her name, the girl responds: “Ally.” 

“Hi, Ally. Do you mind if I sit with you?” 

She still doesn’t look at him but from the shift of her hair, she must nod her head because then Peter approaches slowly before climbing over the railing and sitting beside her. 

Tony doesn’t know if it’s callous to say he’s not too concerned for Peter’s safety because after all, he’s seen the kid handle much worse. A fall off a bridge and into the cold murky waters below wouldn’t kill him. But seeing someone who he tried to save fall to their death...there’s no coming back from that. Peter would lose himself, Tony knows he would. 

But so far, he seems to be handling the situation well and tries to initiate a light hearted conversation that subtly drives at the deeper issue. “So,” he begins, “what are you doing up here?” 

Ally is trying very hard not to look at him, instead focusing on some point far off in the distance, even as her eyes water and her lower lip trembles. Her shoulders are trembling as a sob wrenches itself from her throat. Her poorly attempted stoicism collapses as she cries, “I just can’t do it anymore.” 

Tony hears Peter draw in a breath meant to steady himself and listens, enraptured, as Peter gently asks, “Why?” 

Ally sniffles and shakes her head. She tilts her head back, looking to the heavens. A tear trails down her reddened cheeks as she stutters out, “Every-everyone hates me. At home. At-at school. All my friends abandoned me and I’m ju-I’m all alone. I’m all alone, Spider-Man and I just-I can’t do it anymore.” 

Peter inches closer to her side and, with a voice quiet and tender in a way that is meant for someone twice his own age, replies, “You have me.” 

Tony feels something stirring in his chest. Biting and cathartic, like a vice clamping down on his heart that someone manages to feel good. 

Ally looks to him with surprised eyes and Peter continues, slowly and carefully. 

“I know what it feels like to be alone. To think you’re the only one who feels a certain way because the bad things keep happening. And I know I don’t know you very well, Ally, but I want you to know that you’re never as alone as you think you are. And I know it doesn’t seem like it, sitting here, but you’re really brave for telling me all that. That was so awesome what you did by telling me that.” 

“Thank you,” Ally whispers, her lips barely parting. 

Peter goes on. “And I know there are going to be nights and days when it feels like it’s not going to get any better but it does. I promise it does. You just gotta..you just gotta keep holding on. Whatever it is you’re going through...it doesn’t last forever.” 

Tony doesn’t even realize he’s crying until the screen seems to blur before his very eyes and he hastily wipes away tears, ignoring the burning sensation in his throat and how his nose itches. 

“Promise?” Ally asks, teary and tentative and hopeful all the same. 

“Yeah, I promise,” Peter replies and Tony finds himself smiling through the tears as Peter offers her his hand and helps her climb back over the railing to safety, where she throws her arms around him, thanking him endlessly. 

Peter returns the embrace, replying with a steady stream of “It’s okay, you’re okay” as a small sense of pride, like candlelight, alights in the darkest caverns of Tony’s broken spirit as tears continue to fall down his face. 

He watches Peter walk her to the nearest hospital and listens to their conversation about pointless things: movies, books, music. But he is not listening hard to any of it because Peter’s earlier words are ringing like church bells over and over in his head, permeating a feeling of safety and hope through him, like everything really is going to be okay. 

For someone so young, Peter knows so, so much. 

Peter brings Ally to a nearby hospital and turns her into a friendly and kind yet worried nurse as the situation is explained in gentle tones. Then Peter goes home and takes off the mask and the footage ends but how Tony feels doesn’t. 

There’s something small inside him. Just a fragile, flickering flame that makes him smile a little to think about the prospect of tomorrow, to see it the way Peter sees it. Maybe not a day when it all gets better but a day where he’s one step closer to being okay. 

_“You just gotta...you just gotta keep holding on.”_

With a raw throat from too many tears cried, he lowly instructs FRIDAY to play Peter’s voicemails on a loop, to which she responds, “Of course. Activating Lullaby Protocol now.” 

Tony, still weary and heavy laden from lack of sleep, trudges over to a couch against a wall of the lab and lies down, tugging a blanket over his shoulders as FRIDAY dims the lights. Peter’s voice filters through the walls, talking about everything and nothing, and FRIDAY must know what Tony really wants to hear because the last words he hears before he falls asleep is a promise. 

_“Whatever you’re going through...it doesn’t last forever.”_


	2. Chapter Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> idk when the next update will be because i have a beginning and end already written but...no...middle...so that's a problem
> 
> hope you enjoy this update though!

As it turns out, one good night of sleep can only get someone so far. 

After that one night where Tony fell asleep listening to Peter’s voicemails on a loop, he fell back into the insomnia cycle, connecting dots on the ceiling, watching numbers on the clock tick by. Some nights were better than others. Sometimes, he managed to get a few good hours in and felt a little more refreshed by the time he had to start the day. 

But other times, sleep wouldn’t come, always hovering just around the edges and never swallowing him whole like he wants it to. Friday night is spent tossing and turning and trying in vain to imagine something sweet and yellowed by time, not something so crystal clear as a shield battering the armor and blood splattering the snow. 

He’s not sure when but at some point he retreats from his bed and wanders into the bathroom, searching through the medicine cabinet and finding precious sleeping pills, only taken on rare occasions. What makes the night different is that tomorrow, Peter is coming over. He always comes over on Saturday’s and Tony wants to be well rested when he comes over and he wants to be able to give Peter his full attention, not sleep laced remnants of it. 

So, in the bathroom lights dimmed to a bearable level yet bright enough for him to see, he checks the dosage and rattles the pills out into his hand and swallows them before chasing them down with a glass of cold water afterwards. 

He goes back to bed and closes his eyes and this time, it only takes a few minutes rather than a couple hours before he manages to fall asleep. It’s dreamless and warm, the void swaddling him in something liquid and cozy. He is not sure how much time he spends floating in this place, only know that it feels like an eternity has passed by the time the darkness begins to fracture, light spilling in through the fissures. 

Tony turns over underneath the covers, drawing them tightly over his shoulders as he slowly blinks awake, eyelids heavy, vision hazy. Through the window, the trees on the compound grounds dance gently in the wind, bending from side to side. Sunlight spills in through the window as he groans, rubbing his eyes to dispel the bleariness. 

“FRIDAY, time check,” he mutters. 

“Peter Parker will be arriving in approximately forty five minutes.” 

And with that, he turns over, swings his legs over the edge of the bed and pads across the carpet to take a steamy shower. 

The hot water is a relaxing, gentle wake up. By the time he steps out and dresses in a casual tee shirt and jeans, he feels refreshed and more like an actual human, if such a feeling even exists. 

After another time check from FRIDAY, he learns Peter should be arriving in around fifteen minutes, which is enough time to head downstairs to the lab and brew a pot of coffee, as well as decide which projects should be on the docket for today. 

Typically, Tony has a to-do list while Peter just gets to mess around with whatever is provided. Tony’s projects tend to either be geared towards Stark Industries related ventures or upgrading Iron Man tech. Peter’s projects are normally Spider-Man oriented. 

However, Peter has been a surprising as of late. Or rather, more of a surprise. Because recently, he’s taken to trying to fix the broken down Iron Man suit from Siberia Tony hasn’t even tried to touch because it’s still too painful, still too soon. The arc reactor has been shattered beyond repair. 

But Peter somehow sees something in it, sees something worth saving. Tony thinks it’s beyond redemption and so he’s left it alone, left Peter to his own devices to try and fix it. If it’s what he wants to spend his time on, Tony isn’t going to stop him. And besides, once he’s set his mind to something, there’s no talking him out of it. 

As Tony enters the lab, he eyes the suit out of the corner of his eye. It’s mid-repair, wires spilling out of the torso like tentacles and there’s a gaping hole where the arc reactor once was. It’s a sorry sight to look at. 

But who knows? Maybe Peter can turn it into something beautiful. 

Tony goes through the motions of starting a pot of coffee and having FRIDAY read off his emails. Peter should be arriving any minute now. Tony is just pouring a steaming cup of coffee into an SI mug when Peter walks through the door, backpack slung over his shoulder. 

The sight of him reminds Tony about the video footage he viewed, the words frothing as they rise to the surface of his mind. 

_“Whatever you’re going through, it doesn’t last forever.”_

He tries hard to convince himself that reviewing the footage isn’t a breach of privacy. There’s enough guilt clawing at the pit of his stomach and tearing down the walls as it is. And besides, it’s not like Peter doesn’t know about the feature. He has to know it’s being reviewed at some point or another. 

It doesn’t ease Tony’s conscious. But the lighthearted smile Peter gives as he leans against the countertop helps. 

“Hey, Mr. Stark,” he greets. 

“Hey, kid,” Tony replies and sips his coffee, ignoring the stinging heat and bitterness. It’s scalding hot. He should’ve waited. Tony leans against the counter too, trying to feign casualness. “So, what’s the game plan for today?” 

Peter shrugs. “Well, I was thinking I could keep working on the suit?” 

Tony gestures to where it’s hanging in the corner, battered and mangled. “It’s all yours.” 

Peter’s face brightens and he grins. “Thanks,” he replies and runs over, calling over his shoulder, “Oh, and I have a couple upgrade ideas for my suit.” 

“Course you do,” Tony says as he strolls over to his own workspace, sipping his coffee as he goes. For whatever reason, his hands are shaking. He shoves one into his jeans’ pocket, the other tightly clutching the handle of his mug. “How’s your aunt?” he asks, tight. 

Peter glances at him then turns to the desk - his desk, one Tony installed for him - which displays a wide array of tools entirely at his disposal. “Oh, she’s good,” Peter says, grabbing a flathead screwdriver before turning towards the armor. “She’s been working a lot of late shifts lately.” 

“Yeah, so have you,” Tony quips. God, why can’t his hands stop shaking? 

Peter laughs. “Yeah, we’ve both been pretty busy.” 

Something blooms in his stomach - hot, quick - and he collapses down into his chair, a shuddery breath escaping as he narrowly avoids spilling his coffee. His heart is beating hellishly fast and he feels jittery, nerves frenzied. He presses a hand over his chest and feels his heart pounding against his fingertips. 

“Mr. Stark?” Peter says, cautious and concerned. “You okay?” 

He doesn’t know. It feels like he could be having an anxiety attack but he doesn’t know why his body is going off or what the trigger is, how it was pulled. He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. 

_Not here,_ he thinks. _Not in front of Peter._

“Yeah, I’m fine,” he replies, forcing his voice to be calm, trying to inflect evenness. He swivels around on the chair. “Just sat down a little too fast, that’s all.” 

Peter is eyeing him warily, tapping a rhythm out on the screwdriver he’s clenching. Worry is creasing his brows together and he doesn’t move, just stares. 

Tony sighs, breath shaky and warm. “I’m fine, kid, I promise.” 

It still takes him a second before Peter hesitantly turns back around to the armor, trying to pry off the metal plating. 

But Tony is still jittery and on edge and he is wondering what the hell is exactly is going on. Is he experiencing a user error or system malfunction? He doesn’t know but he is beginning to suspect coffee was a bad idea and he pushes it away, wills his fingers to steady as he works on replying to emails, lest Pepper have his head if they go unanswered. 

Silence permeates the workspace. A little awkward, the space in their relationship still tentative and barely explored, but Tony is content to listen to Peter working and mumbling under his breath to himself, if only because it forces him to focus on something other than how the nerves in his arms are shot for whatever reason. 

After a while, Peter breaks the silence with, “Mr. Stark?” 

“Yeah?” he replies. 

“Um, what happened to the suit?”   
That’s something he tries not to think about - the shield shining, fear paralyzing his bones, blood filling his mouth - and the onslaught of memories doesn’t help how panicked he already feels. He barely manages to edge out, “Battle damaged.” 

“Well, yeah, but by what? It would help if I knew what happened so I-so I know how to fix it.” 

_“Did you know?”_

It’s not Peter’s fault because he doesn’t know, Tony hasn’t told him - Tony hasn’t told anyone, everything is still stained in red - but all of a sudden, the sleepless nights, the barely holding on, the coffee crutch and everything he’s feeling comes rushing in to meet him as his breaths come short and fast and he realizes he’s having a panic attack. 

His chest spasms as his heart pounds in his ears, drowning out the nearby cries of _“Mr. Stark? Mr. Stark, are you okay?”_ , his hands tremoring uncontrollably, palms clammy. It feels like spikes are being driven straight through his chest and he can’t breathe, he can’t breathe, he can’t breathe, he’s gonna die, he’s gonna die, he’s gonna die. 

He doesn’t know how but he slips off the stool and onto the floor, landing hard. His vision is going prismatic, someone tilting and swaying as they make their way over, like they’re being tossed about on a ship at sea. 

Heat rushes through him like a wildfire as someone - Peter, it’s Peter, oh no - crouches down in front of him, a few feet away, enough space that if Tony explodes right there, Peter won’t be caught in the blast radius. His stomach churns. Peter’s face is pained. 

_“Mr. Stark,”_ he says, voice warbled like he’s underwater, _“Tony, you gotta breathe. Can you breathe?”_

Tony tries but he’s shivering now, chills running down his spine. He wraps his arms around himself, trying to physically hold himself together since he’s completely losing it mentally. 

_“Tony, breathe,”_ Peter insists, calm, _“Just-just try to breathe, okay?”_

The words filter through and Tony does, forcing one breath in, holding then releasing it. He repeats this and feels himself coming down as Peter’s voice begins to clear. 

“Yeah, okay, that’s good,” Peter says, “Good. In and out. In and out.” 

Slowly, the crashing of his pulse in his ears begins to recede and he is a little sweaty but the heat is dying out too, at least. He closes his eyes and tries to release the tension in how tightly he’s holding himself. His mouth is dry. 

“Hand me-hand me the glass on the counter,” Tony pants, tiredly. 

Peter glances behind him at a small row of ornately decorated glasses lining the counter. “Just-just the glass?” 

Tony nods rapidly. “Yeah, just-just give it to me, please.” 

Peter hesitates only a second, torn, before he launches to his feet and grabs one off the counter. He brings it back and holds it out at arm’s length, still maintaining distance. 

Tony takes it and holds it tight, the engravings pressing into his palm. It’s empty but it does its purpose: providing him with a dark sense of comfort. He’s trying not to drink, no matter how badly he wants to. Holding the glass helps, even if there’s nothing in it. 

He closes his eyes and leans his head back, flushed with exertion and embarrassment now that it’s all over. He sighs heavily. The last thing he wanted was for Peter to see him like this. Weak, weary, fragile. He’s not the hero Peter adores, not the one he needs. He’s not a hero at all, not like this. 

He has two choices: run and hide or own up to what happened. And he’s still trying to be a hero, no matter how poor of one he might be, so what comes out of his mouth, raw and wounded, is, “Sorry you had to see that.” 

Peter blinks and shakes his head. “No, it’s-it’s alright.” He bites his lip for a second before adding, “I get ‘em too.” 

Tony is stunned now, not quite knowing what to say to that. He feels like something has ripped open between them. Wounds, airing out. People who bleed together stay together. 

“Do you-do you want to stand?” Peter asks. 

Tony nods and Peter stands then extends a hand downward, tugs Tony to his feet. He stumbles before he regains traction and he stares at Peter, still not knowing what to say. Gratitude is in order but he’s still focused on _“I get them too”_ and _“it doesn’t last forever.”_

Silence reigns, breaths falling audibly from Tony’s lips as Peter stares at him with those brilliant, wide brown eyes. Tony tries out different words in his head none of them feeling quite right. Eventually, he settles on a quiet, tremulous, “Thank you.” 

Peter shrugs, like it’s nothing, like he didn’t just see at Tony at his lowest and choose to stay despite it. “You’d do it for me.” 

Tony feels his heart swell with gratitude and an unadulterated joy as he sets the glass down and then embraces Peter because the universe has been nothing but cruel and yet somehow, this wonderful miracle that is Peter Parker has managed to fall right into his lap. Either by fate or design, he doesn’t know but he knows that despite everything, he smiles tearfully as he holds onto Peter. 

And Peter, in turn, holds onto him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hope you enjoyed! be sure to leave a comment or kudos if you did and i'll see you guys next update...whenever that is. bye!
> 
> instagram: ironarana  
> wattpad: ironarana


	3. Chapter Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “It’s incredible, isn’t it, Mr. Stark?” Peter says, smiling warmly. 
> 
> But Tony isn’t looking at the sunrise when he replies with a smile, “Yeah. It sure is.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i started this and deleted this chapter like three different times because i hit a wall with this one so hard but now, i think i'm finally beginning to get somewhere. don't ask when the next update is though because i have no idea and i have lots of fic ideas. i need a list tbqh. 
> 
> anyways hope you enjoy and hope it was well worth the wait. i initially hated this one but i gotta say, i'm really proud of how it turned out in the end :)))

There is something about stormy nights that strike him as utterly terrifying. 

Tony knows, in hindsight, that there is nothing to be afraid of. They aren’t that threatening and through the lens, they could even be viewed as something to be revered. But there’s just something about them that awakens old ghosts, sends the hardwood floorboards creaking beneath invisible footsteps. They send him through time back to the mansion he was raised in where the storm brewing inside was always worse than the storm outside. 

Here, now, safe from the jagged glass of broken bottles and words laced with venom and liquor, Tony sits in a velvet armchair overlooking the compound grounds and by the soft yellow lamplight, he watches the storm. The rain falls hard and fast, plastering itself against the window and trailing down to the track. Trees lining the grounds are helpless to submit to the all powerful might of the unstoppable winds accompanying the sheets of rain. Every once in a great while, thunder claps deafeningly and echoes, the sound rattling his bones even as he watches stoically from the chair, a blanket thrown over his legs, hands cradling a steaming cup of tea. 

The warmth spreads from his fingertips to his elbows, sending tingles through his nerves. They’re still now. Quiet. And while he still feels a darkness writhing in the pit of his stomach, he feels at peace despite it. There’s something to be said about that. Only a sacred few can find peace in the midst of a storm. 

He doesn’t know how much time passes until he hears an imperceptible creaking, the floorboards giving. He turns his ear towards the hallway and sure enough, there are footsteps, tentatively growing nearer, the steps quiet. Tony waits and then sees Peter round the corner, shadows hollowing out his cheekbones and under eyes. His hair is tousled, brown curls hanging over his forehead. His eyes are half lidded and he smiles sleepily. 

“Hey, Mr. Stark,” he murmurs and yawns widely, eyes squeezing shut. 

Tony doesn’t know why but it’s endearing to see Peter like this: barely awake, a blanket drawn over his shoulders like a child would do if they wanted a cape. He seems so much younger in Tony’s eyes. 

“Hey, sleepyhead,” Tony replies, feeling light inside. Just Peter being here, standing close nearby...it’s like light is spilling through the fissures, warming his insides. “What are you doing up?” 

Peter shrugs. “Can’t sleep.” He glances away, eyes catching on a twin velvet armchair resting in the corner, and he points at it. “Can I?” 

Tony nods his assent and Peter wanders across the hardwood, the hem of the blanket trailing lightly over the floor. Peter seats himself in the chair and curls into the corner, tucking his legs underneath him and letting the blanket conceal himself. He rests an elbow on the chair’s arm and his chin in a palm, gaze cast out through the window as he watches the onslaught of rainfall. 

Tony doesn’t know why but it seems impossible to reconcile this still small version of Peter with one who would get panic attacks. “I get them too” haunts him from the recesses of his memory. It’s saddening and he finds himself imagining Peter curled into the corner of a room, body trembling as he’s wracked with sobs and short breaths. 

He sends the visual away. But the phrase echoes, over and over again, luring him like a siren begging to be silenced. He tries to resist, he does, but after a few moments pass, he quietly disrupts the silence with, “What do you mean you get them too? The anxiety attacks?” 

He’s not looking so much for an answer so much as a reason why. Why someone so young and intelligent and full of wit and bravery could ever experience something so horrible.

Peter tears his gaze away, eyes wide and surprised. He blinks a second, as if processing and then replies, “Oh.” He seems shy, suddenly, dipping his head down and shifting awkwardly in the seat. “My, um, my uncle died last Christmas. I get them from him and from Spider-Man sometimes. You know, occupational hazards and all that,” he adds with a breathy laugh. 

“Yeah, occupational hazards,” Tony echoes in agreement. 

Peter nods, stare slipping away. He’s chewing on his lower lip hesitantly, brows drawn together in contemplation. He wants to say something, maybe, and Tony wants him too. He likes listening to Peter talk but he doesn’t know how to voice that Peter is safe here. He can say whatever he wants here in the darkness and Tony will hold nothing against him. 

He doesn’t know how to say that. So he doesn’t say anything at all. 

A few more minutes pass, the silence instilled with tentativeness and awkwardness tangled together all at once. At some point, Peter does talk, and it is hesitant, but Tony can tell from the lapses between words that it’s not really what Peter had been wanting to say. 

“Are you okay, Mr. Stark?” 

Tony doesn’t reply a second. The initial urge is to deflect, defend, lie. Don’t let him in, some inner mechanism warns. He’ll leave. Don’t ruin the only good thing left. 

But there’s something else. Something he can’t call hope because it’s dangerous and destructive and it’s something he’s not quite ready to believe in yet because it’s hard to believe in what he can’t see. Whatever it is, it tells him that Peter saw him sunken down, at his lowest, a broken battered ship in the darkest depths of the sea. And he didn’t flea in horror, he didn’t leave him repair the shattered pieces of himself. Peter was there to help him stand to his feet again. 

Peter was never meant to be a cornerstone the way Tony was meant to. But he was. And he stayed. 

Tony sighs deeply, the exhale shaky and warm. Peter is blinking at him in anticipation with those eyes. God, those eyes. So big and wide and filled with life and a vast horizon too terribly huge for Tony to even comprehend. 

Finally, because he is afraid his own voice might betray him, he murmurs quietly, “No. Not really.” 

Peter nods slowly to himself, understanding. Solemness falls over his features, ringing itself around his irises. He seems distant or maybe just waiting for Tony go on. 

Something inside is telling him to tell Peter what really happened. He deserves to know. He deserves an explanation for everything that happened yesterday morning and Tony wants to relent, he wants to tell Peter everything because deep down inside, he wants Peter to leave before he’s ruined for good. He should scare Peter off now because it will hurt less now than in the future when chances are, they’ll be much closer and better acquainted with one another. 

But there’s another part inside himself, the part that dares to hope, that maybe Peter will stay. He wants Peter to stay. The desires are dueling and strong and Tony shudders to think which side will give in. Because the truth is Peter has seen. He has seen Tony shaking and falling apart at the seams and he didn’t run or hide. He wrapped his arms around Tony and didn’t let go and somehow, Tony still doesn’t have the words to describe how much he needed that. Because while he may wallow through guilt in silence, while he may prattle around the compound all by himself, the honest to God truth is that he loathes being alone. It means too much time for his thoughts to become too entangled with each other, too loud. 

When he’s with Peter, or even Rhodey or Pepper, the world goes silent. His thoughts are quelled. It’s just him. Just them. 

Peter is still staring in wait, chewing on his lower lip in anxious anticipation, when the words come spilling out before Tony even realizes. 

“You know, I never told you what happened. To the suit, I mean.” 

Peter draws the blanket tightly around his shoulders and leaning forward in his seat, like this is something conspiratorial. It adds another layer of stress to baring more wounds for Peter to see but saying it in the dark helps, like whatever is said in the dark will stay here. 

“The suit,” Tony goes on, hesitant, choosing his words carefully, “was battle damaged-” 

“At the airport?” Peter asks. Then, quickly, he amends, “Sorry, I shouldn’t interrupt.” 

Tony’s mouth quirks, Peter’s awkwardness a welcome moment of levity. “It’s okay,” he replies. “Well, yes, and no, sort of. The...brunt of the damage happened later. In Siberia.” 

Peter’s brows scrunch together in confusion. He frowns a little. “Siberia?” 

_“This isn’t gonna change what happened.”_

“Yeah,” he replies, quiet, voice wet. Broken. “I found out...the truth about...what happened to my parents.” 

He hasn’t told Peter. He hasn’t told anyone. Because he can’t stand to lose Rhodey or Pepper or even Happy but maybe, if Peter knows, if Peter stays, then maybe they will too. 

“And I reacted. I fought...the people who kept the truth from me.” Tony scoffs bitterly and lowly to himself. Still protecting Steve and his reputation, even after the stinging bite of betrayal. “They damaged the suit. And it’s been broken ever since.” 

Somehow, he’s unable to look Peter in the eyes and so, he casts them down to the floor. Shame is like burning coals upon his shoulders, even though Peter doesn’t know the extent of what happened, just the verbatim. While he may have been justified in reacting the way he did, he feels the guilt press down on him. It was only after the blinding haze of anger passed did he realize that he maimed someone who had no control over their actions, whose agency had been violated. There’s a hint of irony, somewhere. 

Silence is a still sea between them with a frantic undercurrent plagued by Tony’s inward pleas. He has been desperate, for years, for understanding. For friends. And he is hoping against hope that maybe just this once, the universe will grant him reprieve, and Peter will stay. 

But he doesn’t want to push for a response so he waits, even though it’s killing him on the inside. God, he would give anything to be inside Peter’s head right now. Just to know what he’s thinking. What’s running through his head with all this new information. 

He doesn’t have to wait long, however. Because soon Peter’s voice, like a pebble skipping over water, breaks the silence, cutting through the undercurrent. He only says two words and while Tony would normally be angered by sympathy, somehow it’s different coming from Peter. 

“I’m sorry.” 

Tony dares to lift his eyes, just for a moment. Peter is staring, those big round eyes filled with a sorrow ages old. He almost appears pained, like he’s been stabbed in the gut and Tony’s twisted the knife. 

“I-I can’t imagine what you’re going through, Mr. Stark,” Peter says, quietly. “I’m really, really sorry.” 

Tony shakes his head slightly to himself. “It’s okay.” 

A pause. Then Peter adds, hesitant, “But...it’s not okay. I mean, not-not really.” 

Tony, finally, raises his head all the way to meet Peter’s gaze. Their eyes meet and their stare holds steady, two souls seeing into each other. One darkness, one light. 

“But that’s okay too,” Peter amends, softly. With a small, fond smile, he adds, “May always says, ‘It’s okay to not be okay’ cause nothing ever lasts forever, Mr. Stark.” 

Tony feels his heart eagerly tugging itself forward, against the fabric of his shirt. And then, it’s like everything in his periphery has faded into darkness until all he can see is Peter: the light at the end of the tunnel. Nothing has ever mattered so much as this. He listens and waits and begs inwardly. Keep going. Tell me more. Don’t ever stop. 

Peter shrugs. “I mean, look at the storm,” he says and gestures with a hand to where the wind howls and the rain comes in violent sheets. “Everyone knows no storm lasts forever. And the sunsets after they’re over are always the best ones.” 

Tony is silent as he drinks this all in, tries to fathom how he could possibly even begin to comprehend the poignancy and wisdom spilling from the lips of someone who isn’t even eighteen years old. It defies everything he’s ever known. Peter is simply an unforeseeable factor. Something he could have never planned for and surprising at every turn. 

When Peter returns his gaze from the storm to Tony, he offers a smile. Timid, hopeful. And his voice is the same. 

“It’s going to get better, Mr. Stark. You’ll see.” 

And it’s like a breath of fresh air into Tony’s lungs. It’s like euphoria following a scientific breakthrough that could alter the course of everything. It’s like pain but the kind that is cathartic, like something has been shed and a new philosophy has burst to life and reared its colorful head, begging to be seen and heard. 

It’s enough to sustain him for years to come. 

-

Hours pass and the storm is beginning to quiet. 

The rain slows into a light drizzle and the wind falls into a gentle breeze. Tony watches the storm clouds fade and change their colors to become the purest white, a clean canvas for the sun to project its colors on once it rises. 

It has been mostly quiet between Tony and Peter since their conversation. Tony has had time to think and feel. There is a mixture of emotions swirling inside and maybe later, he will be able to answer them all but what is stronger than all the rest is an immensely concentrated gratitude that swells like a tidal wave and crashes over him in sets every time his eye catches Peter, which is often. 

He feels unworthy. Of someone with a heart bigger than the universe itself and more courageous than any hero Tony has ever known. Peter is brave not only because he helps to save but because he sees the worst and yet he still chooses to believe in hope. In sunsets after storms and the notion that everything will be okay in the end. 

Tony has been trying to find a way to express gratitude but anything he can think of seems woefully inadequate compared to the gift of Peter’s assurances bestowed upon him. 

Tony supposes he can only ensure that Peter’s efforts won’t be in vain. 

He thinks back to the cave in Siberia that seemed so cold and dark and lonely, once. Where his suit was battered by the bare hands of a teammate he dared to trust, dared to believe in like one would believe in a god. 

But now, it doesn’t seem so bad. If only he knew then what he knows now. That one day in the future, he would feel warm and he would be able to see the light. He wouldn’t be alone so long as he had young, steady hands to help him stand again rather than seek to destroy him. 

Hindsight is too often his curse. The cross he has to bear. But somehow, it has morphed into a blessing. He almost wishes he could back and tell himself that it would all be okay. 

_“Everyone knows no storm lasts forever. And the sunsets after they’re over are always the best ones.”_

Tony turns his head to Peter, who is staring out the window with a childish eagerness, waiting for the sun to come up. 

Tony clears his throat. He wants to thank Peter, he really does, but for all the speeches he’s given, he can’t find the words. So he decides to say something else, to play this as nonchalant and casual, like he didn’t just bare his heart and soul to Peter and let him see the gnarled mess of tangled wires inside his system. 

Voice low and rusted, he asks, “How’s the suit coming?” 

Peter looks away from the window and back at Tony, beaming with pride. “Oh, it’s going great, Mr. Stark. It’s still broken though, cause it was really, really damaged. But, you know, I’m working on it. I think it’s gonna be really awesome once I put all the pieces back together again.” 

Tony nods and murmurs wetly, “That’s great” because Peter, unknowingly, always has the right words, always knows what to say. It’s like an inbred trait, whereas Tony’s well rounded way with words is simply nurture not nature. Tony hopes what Peter’s saying is true. That maybe the suit really can be put back together again. Maybe it will even be better than before. 

Tony locks this away somewhere sacred, the little hope Peter gives like drops of sunshine falling from the heavens. Together, they watch the sunrise, rays of light spilling through the trees as it crests over the horizon. Peter tips his nose and chin up, eyes closing as he basks in the warmth the sun brings. He’s radiant beneath the early morning glow of the sun. 

“It’s incredible, isn’t it, Mr. Stark?” Peter says, smiling warmly. 

But Tony isn’t looking at the sunrise when he replies with a smile, “Yeah. It sure is.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hope you guys liked it! leave a kudos and a comment if you want and i'll talk to you guys next update. bye guys!
> 
> wattpad: ironarana


	4. Chapter Four

The world is brighter than the sun now that Peter is here. 

It’s all a little bit better, a little bit brighter than it was before. Tony sees halos around everything, the world bathed in golden daylight and hope shining like rays of sun. He never thought it would be possible but then again, Peter is the definition of impossible and Tony wouldn’t trade it in this or any other lifetime. 

He sleeps better. When he hits the pillow late at night and he opens his eyes, warm yellow light is spilling in over the treetops and through his windows, illuminating the dust motes floating innocently through the air. The morning’s are transformative, renewing his mind and soul. A new day, a new chance to start over. To try and be better. To try and be the hero that Peter believes him to be. 

It’s hard, with school, but Peter comes around more often. Their conversations are more lighthearted than they were but Peter shows his concern in other ways. He offers Tony water instead of coffee, offers to help him on projects. He avoids sensitive conversations he knows are too stinging and raw to talk about yet. Somehow, he’s noticed all these behaviors and he hasn’t said anything about it, just doing his best to accommodate. 

Tony hopes Peter knows that he tries to put the same level of care and attention into watching over Peter. 

They spend time in the lab, of course. It’s Tony’s safe space and it’s where he feels most comfortable trying to navigate the tumultuous, uncharted waters of mentoring. He let Peter upstairs, and he let Peter see inside his spirit, but it wasn’t without hesitation or fear. 

He’s trying. He really is. 

But sometimes it feels like for every two steps forward, he takes one step back and it just makes relapses all the more soul crushing, like he’s reaching for some unattainable glory only found in the heavens. 

It’s another late night and they’re spending it together in the lab, taking a break to breathe and stretch their muscles. With a long, wide mouthed yawn and a stretch of his arms overhead, Peter says, “Mr. Stark?” 

“Yeah, kid?” Tony replies, narrowing his eyes as his fingers carefully move over the delicate housing unit for nanotech. 

“I’m almost done with the suit.” Tony hears his footsteps across the high-grade linoleum as he grows nearer and then leans against the counter, crossing his arms. He sighs. “It should be fully functioning soon.” 

“That’s great news, kid,” Tony answers, trying to sound genuine even as his voice sounds distant. He can’t help it. Today is a bad, infamous day and his mind has been plagued with too many unwanted flashbacks and dark, starry memories. 

There’s a hesitant pause. Then, tentatively, Peter asks, “Can we, um, can we-can we go on the roof?” 

“Why?” 

“Because I wanna see if the stars look different out here than they do in Queens.” 

Tony blows out a warm, frustrated breath, burying his face in his hands. He can’t mount the glass plate on the housing unit. He’d have to cut a new plate of glass, which would take longer than he wants. And his eyes are burning, flares of angry heat lashing out against his ribcage. 

His voice is tense when he replies, “I’m sure they look just the same, kid.” 

Either Peter doesn’t notice Tony’s distress or he doesn’t comment because then he slips into excited rambling with high and low lilts to his voice. 

“Yeah, but that’s the thing!” he exclaims enthusiastically. “They’ll look so much different out here, Mr. Stark, cause there’s not any light pollution like there is in Queens. Come on, please?” 

Tony sighs and turns to set a hand on his leg, looking up at Peter standing over him. Peter’s chest is heaving from not bothering to breathe between his words and his brown eyes are alight with wonder and jubilee, a smile spreading across his face. 

If he’s in the business of being honest, and he’s been trying to be, then the last thing he wants to do is go stargaze. Today is an especially bad day to do it too because the twinkling stars against a rich, velvet curtain of night has haunted his dreams for too long and he doesn’t want the nightmare fuel to return. Not when he has slowly begun to sleep through the night again, minute by minute. 

But then he sees Peter standing there, his eyes aglow like the stars he so desperately wants to go gaze at on the rooftop. And his resolve and self preservation melts and he finds himself nodding and he murmurs, quietly so his voice doesn’t break, “Okay. Let’s go.” 

But Peter’s excited expression dampens at the reply he receives and Tony immediately feels the guilt come crashing down on him in waves. 

“Oh,” Peter says, disappointment palpable in his tone. He shakes his head. “We-we don’t have to, Mr. Stark, if-if you don’t want to.” 

“No, it’s alright,” Tony says and rubs his eyes. They water in return. He’s spent too much time trying to solve this problem with the housing unit and he could use a much needed break. He’s always heard that sometimes while distracted, the subconscious will continue to work the problem on its own. 

Besides, Peter has a way of taking something haunting and shedding new light on it. Maybe he can reframe this too: Tony’s fear of the vast, unrelentless night sky. 

“Come on,” Tony says and he stands from his chair, slinging an arm around Peter’s shoulder. “Let’s go before I change my mind.” 

Peter laughs and they walk side by side together into the elevator, riding it all the way to the roof. Tony feels unsettled in the elevator as they shoot upward, the walls rattling around them, and he tries to concentrate on his breathing, reminding himself that there is no wormhole to fly through, no alien ship. This elevator isn’t his coffin. 

Peter is so excited. 

When the doors slide open, a damp, chill air breezes by in greeting. Tony shivers a little while Peter rushes past him, nearly slipping on the wet gravel layering the roof. He tilts his head back and looks at the sky and he laughs, exhilarated. He turns to Tony and smiles, pointing upward. 

“Mr. Stark, look!” he exclaims. “Come check this out.” 

Tony crosses the elevator threshold and saunters over, shoes crunching on rocks, hands in his jeans pockets. He’s trying to avert his gaze. He doesn’t want to look up. If he does, then he’s back, sailing through the wormhole, a missile strapped to his shoulders. He thought the stars would be the last thing he saw before he died. He didn’t want to be stardust. 

And he’s never been the same since. 

“Mr. Stark?” Peter asks. “Wanna see?” 

Tony shakes his head. “No, that’s okay, kid. I’m alright.” 

Peter expression is crestfallen and curious, brows drawn together as he tilts his head. There’s also a tinge of worry Tony can barely see through the darkness. 

“Why?” Peter asks. 

Tony shrugs, stiff. He’s in the business of honesty. And if Peter hasn’t run fleeing with his head on fire after a late night confessional, then he won’t leave now, on the roof, the stars twinkling down over them like diamonds inlaid in velvet. 

“Cause, um,” Tony begins, stiltedly. “Well, you know, I almost died. About five years ago.” 

Peter nods. “The aliens,” he murmurs with reverence, breath evaporating. 

“Yeah, well-” Tony scoffs, shakes his head at the absurdity. He loved the stars when he was younger. Now he’s terrified of them. “-turns out flying a missile through an alien wormhole and thinking you’re gonna die alone in space isn’t very good for your mental health. Or stargazing.” 

Peter presses his lips together in a frown. “I’m sorry,” he replies, quiet. 

“You don’t have to apologize for things that aren’t your fault.” 

“I know,” Peter says, kicking absentmindedly at a rock, gravel shuffling beneath his feet. “I just feel bad is all.” 

Silence falls between them and Peter walks across the roof to go sit on the ledge, legs dangling. Tony follows quietly behind and then seats himself in the same way, shoulder to shoulder beside Peter. 

Neither really knows what to say. They came to stargaze and Tony feels guilty for sobering the excitement Peter had burning inside him. He should probably talk about this, it would be good to, but Peter isn’t a therapist. He’s just someone whose learned hard lessons like Tony has and yet, he has a completely different outlook on life. 

Tony waits, wondering if Peter has something to say. If he can reframe this. Take something broken and make it new again, like the suit he’s been so diligently working on downstairs in the lab. It’s so close to functioning, so close to being beautiful again. 

It’s all so close. 

“I’m sorry if I’ve put a lot on you,” Tony says, out of the blue. Peter turns to look at him and once Tony starts, he can’t stop. “You’re not my therapist and I don’t want you to try and sort out every problem I have. You’re just a kid, you don’t need that on you.” 

Peter shrugs, shaking his head, a small smile tilting his lips. “It’s okay, Mr. Stark. Everyone has problems. I just like helping them and making the big things feel small again.” 

“What does that mean?” Tony asks, genuinely curious. 

Peter blows out a breath, staring searchingly out at the wide expanse of land stretching out before them. In the distance, the city can barely be differentiated from the sky, windows glittering seamlessly into the night.

“It means,” Peter begins, “that when something is so big or scary or complicated, you don’t have to focus on the whole thing. You start with something small and then you move onto the next small thing. And the next one, and the next one, and you keep building up the small things. And then one day, you can see the big picture again.” 

Tony is stunned. Through the static, all he can manage to do is whisper, “How do you know that?” 

Peter fiddles with his hands, looking down at his lap. He shrugs. “Something May told me after Ben died. I had a hard time. We both had to figure out how to live again. So we started by focusing on the small things. We ate. We brushed our teeth. We tried to sleep. And the small things started to become a big thing. Then life wasn’t so scary anymore.” 

Tony swallows thickly. His throat is wet. “I’m sorry,” he murmurs, his eyes wide and sad. 

“You don’t have to apologize for things that aren’t your fault, Mr. Stark,” Peter replies, shaking his head. 

Tony elbows him lightly, only mildly offended that his own words were used against him, and Peter just smiles, a breathy laugh escaping him. 

“You know,” Peter begins. “They say the first step to overcoming your fears is facing them. The stars are beautiful tonight, Mr. Stark. And hey, I’ll look up if you do.” 

Tony sighs, scratching his head. He knows this: he wants to stop being afraid. He wants to stop being afraid and anxious and hurting. He wants to grow past the trauma that shaped him and he wants to be shaped into something else. He wants to be taken apart and made new again. No one ever said it would be easy or pretty. 

But no one ever said he’d have to walk through it alone either. 

“Okay,” Tony replies and reaches out for Peter’s hand. 

Peter takes it. Both hands are cold yet strong, Peter palms soft against Tony’s calloused ones. 

“On a count of three?” Peter suggests and Tony nods as the countdown begins. “Three, two, one.” 

They look up. 

The stars are shimmering and truly a sight to behold. There are so many celestial bodies, some brighter than others. Tony focuses on his breathing and finds that there’s no tightness in his chest, his heart isn’t beating a million miles a minute. He’s not freezing up. Peter’s grip on his hand is grounding and real. A tether. This isn’t so bad after all. 

In fact, seeing the stars, courageously shining from millions of light years away amidst a graveyard of other heavenly wonders already long dead, gives him hope. They’re brave. Maybe he can be too. It seems poetic and fitting that what he once feared would bring him death would be a force of nature that brings him life. 

And then he realizes: this is not a relapse. This is a rebirth. 

“It’s gonna be okay, Mr. Stark,” Peter says. “You’ll see.” 

Tony tears his gaze away and smiles down at Peter, who does the same in return. Peter rests his head on Tony’s shoulder. His heart swells with camaraderie. 

And then, in harmony with each other, they look up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry this is so short but i hope you guys enjoyed it and that it was somewhat good? i don't know, i think the quality is passable here but let me know what you think in the comments. be sure to leave a kudos/comment and i'll talk to you guys next update...which won't be for a while...cause i'm gonna be working like a dog to finish summer classes over the next four weeks...send help. 
> 
> wattpad: ironarana


	5. Chapter Five

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i cried writing this, please enjoy. for maximum pain and tears, i recommend listening to "daylight" by taylor swift to go along with this chapter, that is all, you may proceed

_“Is everything okay, Tones?”_

Tony sighs into the phone. He’d hoped Rhodey wouldn’t have been able to detect the underlying tone of nervousness buried in his voice like a groundwire laid beneath soil, but of course Rhodey had, because Rhodey has known him too long not to notice something was wrong when only a single word in greeting had been spoken. 

“Yeah,” Tony replies, instinctually, then backpedals. He scratches his head. “Actually, no, can you um-” He voice shakes, he forces out a steadying breath “-can you meet me here at the compound in fifteen? I need to talk.” 

_“I’m ten minutes of flight time out, I’ll see you soon.”_

“Copy that.” 

The line clicks dead and it’s at that moment the door into the commons area bursts open with a bang. Tony jumps. Pepper blows through the entryway, a staccato clicking from her heels piercing through the air. Her face is awash with worry, her brows drawn together and her eyes wide. 

“Tony? What happened, is everything alright? When you called, over the phone-” 

“I’m fine, I’m alright,” Tony replies and takes her into his arms, tries to will his heartbeat to slow after the scare Pepper gave him. Her gardenia perfume is grounding, familiar. She smells like home and her touch is warm. He presses a kiss into her hair and rubs her back. “It’s okay, I’m okay.” 

When she withdraws from their embrace, a hand reaches to cup the side of his face. Her gaze is intent, worried. “What is this all about, Tony?” 

_“I know that road...what is this?”_

He flinches against the memory, Pepper’s hand falling away. He sees the car crash into the tree and he closes his eyes, a shattered breath escaping despite himself. 

“Tony?” 

Tony comes out of it, inhales sharply. He twists his lips into a smile that he’s sure comes off as a grimace. His eyes are pained. 

“You’ll find out in a minute,” he murmurs tightly, distrusting his own voice. 

They settle onto the couch and Pepper interlaces her fingers with his, engagement ring glinting in the afternoon light shining through the windows. It’s a couple minutes later when Rhodey enters, braces whirring as he moves stiffly into the commons area. 

“Tony!” he calls out. He gestures broadly to the room. “What’s this all about?” 

Tony leaves Pepper on the couch and hurries over to Rhodey, whose brow is shining with a light sweat from the effort it takes to walk. Tony’s concern must show because Rhodey waves him off, insisting,“It’s fine, I’m fine, just tell me what this is all about.” 

_“This isn’t gonna change what happened.”_

_“I don’t care. He killed my mom.”_

Tony stifles a sigh. “Let’s get you seated first,” he replies and they go sit down. Rhodey sits beside Pepper and Tony perches himself on the leather ottoman across from both of them. Pepper is wringing her hands together and Rhodey is wearing an expression that is half stoicism in preparation for a blow, half openness in preparation for a display of honesty. 

Which, he would be right on the latter. 

Tony feels the speech he’d prepared turn to ash in his mouth and now he doesn’t know what to say, doesn’t know how to tell them what happened in Siberia. 

“Um,” is how he starts. He feels a stabbing pain flare in his heart and he presses a thumb against his chest and rubs at the pain to try and alleviate it. An embarrassed heat rushes to his face and he looks down at the ornately woven rug, unable to bear the look in their eyes. 

_You can do this,_ he tells himself. _You can do this._

“I need to tell you both something,” he finally gets out, voice wet and thick. 

In his periphery, he sees Pepper and Rhodey glance at each other before Rhodey replies, “What is it, Tony?” 

He sees it: blood splattering into the snow, metal glinting, a shield slamming down into the reactor and shattering it. He feels the armor shudder around his body and he flinches. 

He closes his eyes and thinks about Peter cozied into a wingback chair as he listened to what Tony had to say because he couldn’t stand to lose Pepper and Rhodey over this and now, he can’t stand to lose Peter either. That’s why he told Peter first. And he stayed and now Tony is daring to hope against all hope that Pepper and Rhodey won’t leave him either. 

He takes a deep breath and wrings out his hands. He can feel the nerves in his fingers trembling as he begins, slow and steady. 

“After the airport fight in Germany, I went to Siberia because I got intel that-” Tony lets out a long sigh “-that Steve and Barnes were walking into a trap. They were gonna need help.” 

He lifts his gaze and looks at Pepper, who nods, and Rhodey, who draws out an, “Ok-ay. Go on.” 

Tony holds Pepper’s eyes for another moment and watches her lashes flutter as she blinks. His heart is hammering against his ribcage right now but he draws a little comfort from her as he continues. 

“Well, it didn’t go down the way I thought it would. Someone was there and they...they showed me something.” 

His voice cracks on the last word and he swallows hard against the ball of wet curdling in his throat. He sets his chin into a hand and closes his eyes, trying to dispel the mental image his mind crafted of a metal hand gripping his...gripping his mom by the throat as the color drains from her face, strangled cries for Howard escaping her lips. 

God, he can’t do this. 

God help him, he can’t do this. 

A gentle hand falls on his kneecap, a thumb running comforting circles over it. Blindly, he takes their hand and squeezes their fingers for strength. A silent tear trails down his cheek as he hears his mother’s crooning echo softly in his ears, her lithe fingers dancing over the piano keys, notes tinkling. 

_“Try to remember, the kind of September, where grass was green…”_

Tony sniffles and sucks in a breath, opens his eyes. He has to do this, he has to get through this. 

“I found out how my parents really died,” he breathes out, tightly. “They weren’t killed in a car crash. They...they were murdered.” 

Pepper’s eyes widen a hair in surprise and she looks at Rhodey, who shakes his head minutely in disbelief, his stare awash with pain. 

“That’s not what the incident report said,” he murmurs lowly, probably out of shock because he’d known Maria, known Howard. 

Maria was always endearing towards him because Howard hadn’t wanted anymore children after Tony and Rhodey was like the second son she’d always wanted but never had. And in return, Rhodey was respectful and tended to hang around on Howard’s bad days. He made her laugh and helped her cook and he became a regular fixture in the Stark household when they were home from MIT on weekends. 

“The report lied,” Tony replies and he’s surprised how steady the words come out. A surge of anger ripples through his chest when he adds, “So did Rogers. He knew who killed them.” 

Rhodey’s brows furrow together in confusion and he leans forward. “Who?” 

Tony’s nostrils flare with a warm huff of breath as his heart beats harder, not from nerves now, but from a resuscitated anger he hasn’t felt since he was in that bunker in Siberia. For a second, he wants to scream his head off, and he’s half tempted to call Steve here right now if only so he can get a square punch to his perfect face. 

He forces the tension in his muscles to relax and they do, long enough for him to say, “Barnes.” 

Rhodey leans back into the couch with this news, gaze distant, processing. Pepper looks between the two of them now, confusion written across her features. 

“Barnes?” she echoes. “As in the Howling Commando, Sergeant Barnes? The one who bombed the UN?” 

“He didn’t bomb it, he was framed,” Rhodey mutters and shakes his head, scoffs. “Steve.” 

“My thoughts exactly,” Tony says. 

Rhodey stifles a sigh and fixes his gaze at a far off point on the wall. Pepper looks from him to Tony and he figures this part of the news, at least, is probably easier for her. She came after. She hadn’t known Maria or Howard, which Tony supposed was probably a good thing. Howard had a propensity for ruining women and Pepper was a good thing in a world of bad things. She didn’t need to be corrupted by him. 

“So,” Pepper says, “then what happened?” 

Tony’s shoulders feel heavy, the flare of anger gone and leaving behind a trail of exhaustion in his wake. He’s so tired from carrying all of this. From carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders and hiding it from the two people best equipped to help carry it with him. 

It’s time to lay it all down. 

He exhales. “We had a fight about it. I...I cut Barnes’ arm off and I almost-I could’ve killed Steve.” 

Pepper withdraws her hand from his and Tony feels fear pierce his stomach like an icicle and a panicked thought - _please don’t leave me_ \- flares in his mind because he has a contingency plans for lots of worst case scenarios but not for this one, not for if Pepper leaves him for good. 

Pain fills his eyes as he feels his heart pleading, begging, Pepper not to leave as he races through what he could possibly do or say to make her stay. And within three seconds, he comes to the conclusion that the only way out is to tell her the truth. 

Hesitantly, he continues, “And I didn’t tell you because I was afraid if I did, if you knew what I’d done...you’d leave.” The last words are quiet, his voice tremulous. He feels so low already but he feels even lower when he whispers, “Please don’t hate me.” 

Pepper eyes are misty with tears and she shakes her head vehemently. She sniffles and her voice is choked up when she cries, “Oh, God, no, Tony.” 

“I could never hate you,” Rhodey says, firm, as he leans forward. His gaze is stern but not cold. He shakes his head. “Never.” 

Tony smiles tearily as he gasps, an enormous weight lifted off his shoulders. Tears stream down his cheeks as Pepper launches into his arms, Rhodey along with her. Tony embraces them both and they all cry together, a tangled mess of limbs and tears and undying love. 

It feels like catharsis. It feels like healing. It feels like something has been dying and fighting to find for so long and now, he’s finally found it and the weight of searching for it and carrying all this guilt is gone. 

Freedom. Peace. 

It’s all he’s ever wanted. 

-

In the morning, Tony rises from bed early and his gaze slips over to the other side of the bed, only to find Pepper sleeping peacefully, auburn hair falling down over her bare back, face downturned into her pillow. 

Tony lips tilt into a small smile as he rounds to her side of the bed and then reaches down, draws the sheets and blankets over her shoulders. He leans over and presses a kiss into her hair and then slips on sweatpants and a sweatshirt before going to sit out on the balcony. 

There’s a damp chill in the morning air, along with the faint scent of pine coming from the trees lining the compound grounds. He inhales deeply and stretches his arms overhead, feeling more refreshed than he’s felt in a lifetime. 

Yesterday, after all the crying stopped, they all made dinner together and they talked. They talked about Siberia, they reminisced about the old days, they talked about everything and nothing, they shared funny stories until they started to laugh and their eyes watered and their stomaches hurt. It’s been a long time since Tony’s laughed that hard. It felt good, felt right. 

Tony sits down in a chair on the balcony and stares out at the distance, waiting. There’s a little space between where the treeline ends and the cityscape begins and it’s just over the water separating the two. The sun rises right there and Tony has a near perfect vantage point. 

_“Everyone knows no storm lasts forever. And the sunrises after they’re over are always the best.”_

Peter is right. This feels like that. It feels like a sunrise after a long, stormy night. It feels like coming alive again. 

He turns his head when he hears the door open and sees Pepper come out, her hair tousled, sheets draped over her body like a Grecian goddess. Maybe she really is. She’s the most beautiful thing Tony has ever seen. 

“Morning,” she says. 

“Morning dear,” he replies with a smile. 

Pepper slides onto his lap, legs dangling off the chairs edge. “Did you sleep alright?” 

Tony nods. “Yeah. First full night of sleep in a while. You know, once I fell asleep.” 

Pepper giggles and tucks a loose strand of hair behind her ear. He catches her left hand as it falls, examines the engagement ring. 

“Mm. I have excellent taste, don’t I?” 

“Well, I’m the one who said yes. So you could say that about me too.” 

Tony shakes his head. “How about I’ll give you twelve percent of the credit and we can make an argument for fifteen later?” 

“Deal,” Pepper says and leans forward, tilting her head. 

Tony closes his eyes and they kiss and it feels perfect, it feels like home. 

And when they stop, they stop just in time to watch the sunrise, morning light spilling over the horizon, bathing them both in a golden glow. 

Tony basks in the warmth and it feels like something new. Something brilliant and wondrous and terrifying unfolding right before his very eyes. 

But as he intertwines Pepper’s fingers with his, he finds he’s not scared at all. 

Not one single bit. 

-

Maybe it’s strange, at least for most people, but Tony hasn’t been here since the cold, rainy winter day they buried his parents back in 1991. 

It was muddy out and he vividly remembers his shoes squelching in the mud and all the black umbrellas everyone unfolded. He was drunk but not noticeably so. The press was already having a field day and there wasn’t any need to see “STARK INDUSTRIES HEIR DRUNK AT PARENT’S FUNERAL” splashed across the tabloids for all to see. 

Most of the attendees were co-workers. Employees. People Howard had worked closely with over the years. Jarvis and Ana had already been laid to rest two years prior, God bless their souls, otherwise they would’ve been there. However, Aunt Peggy was there, and after the funeral he went home with her, and in the morning she helped treat his hangover without a single word. 

The gravestones are modest. Not ostentatious but not so humble that they wouldn’t call attention to themselves. Their names are each carved in simple letters with their birth and death dates etched underneath them. Beneath their dates are the epitaphs. Maria’s reads: “A loving wife, mother, and friend” and Howard’s, a variation of the same. 

A secret, hidden part of Tony has always hated the gravestones. For different reasons. Because in public, Maria was a loving wife but in private, she was a tolerant one and he both hated and admired her resilience for how much terrible treatment she could endure and how, in the public eye, she let on absolutely none of it. 

But he hates Howard’s gravestone more because he was not a loving husband or father, though friend is debatable. He didn’t make a habit of talking to Howard’s friends, lest he be yelled at behind closed doors later for interfering with company affairs. So maybe to them he was, indeed, a good friend. 

But he’s not here to be spiteful. He’s only here for two reasons: closure and a promise. Nothing more, nothing less. 

Tony crouches down in front of Howard’s grave, a weighty brown bag dangling out of one hand. 

“Hey dad,” he greets. “It’s been a while since we talked.” 

There’s silence. Of course there is. 

“Couple things happened. Well, a lot of things have happened so I’ll give you the highlights. Got engaged, that’s a big one. And made her the CEO a couple years back.” Tony scoffs, shakes his head. “Yeah, bet you’re rolling over in your grave at that one. A woman, the CEO of SI. But I still own the company so, rest easy for me, alright?” 

Tony sighs, eyes running over the name “HOWARD STARK” carved into the gravestone. For a second, he shrivels at the sound of bottles shattering and venomous insults echoing in his ears. Sometimes the thought hit him: this is his father. This is someone the media adores and a force to be reckoned with in the business world. There were times Tony wishes he could’ve pulled back the curtain and let the world see Howard for who he really was. A manipulative, abusive husband and father. 

But strangely, he doesn’t find himself wishing for that now. So what if the media will remember Howard, not for who he really was, but who he pretended to be? It’s all in the past now. And Tony can’t keep carrying the past with him otherwise it’ll swallow him whole. 

“I wanted to tell you that there’s someone else now,” Tony says. “Someone in my life, a kid. He’s so brilliant, Dad. He’s so smart and quick witted and incredible and he means more to me than you’ll ever know.” He bites his tongue and looks down at the freshly manicured grass beneath his shoes. And, against not wanting to be spiteful, he can’t help the tinge of malice in his words. “And I’m telling you this because I want you to know I don’t plan on ever being like you. Ever. I’m gonna be there for this kid whenever he needs me. I promise you that.” 

Tony stands and reaches inside the crumpled paper bag to pull out a bottle of Scotch. He stares at it a moment and then unscrews the lid. 

This is a tradition ages old, meant to honor dead family members and friends, and he’s watched it unfold at a few funerals he’s been to. It’s not very common, and Howard’s funeral was over twenty years ago, but Tony figures it’s perfect. It’s perfect for what he’s about to do. 

He thinks about bottles like these being shattered against the wall in drunken rages and for a second, a similar scenario flashes in front of his eyes. Him, throwing a bottle against a wall and Peter, cowering with wide, scared eyes in the corner. 

Tony’s resoluteness hardens. No. He’s never going to be like Howard. 

So he tilts the bottle, watches the alcohol spill out over his father’s grave. Somehow, he feels his resentment pouring out along with it. Years of anger directed towards his father and for what? He’s not even alive today to witness it. 

And then the bottle empties. 

And Tony lets it all go. 

-

“Mr. Stark, you should do the honors.” 

Tony turns in his chair, gaze slipping away from the company emails he’d been answering to Peter standing in his little corner of the lab, nearly completed Iron Man suit dangling from the ceiling. Peter raises his hand to show a faintly glowing arc reactor cupped in it. 

Tony shakes his head. “Nah, kid, I don’t wanna.” 

Peter face turns jokingly petulant as he whines, “Come on, please?” 

“No, listen to me,” Tony says and stands from his chair. He crosses the linoleum to Peter’s cluttered workspace and squeezes Peter’s shoulder with a hand. “This is your project. You started it, you should be the one to finish it.” 

A faint smile tilts Peter’s lips, an excited light glimmering in his eyes. Tony’s hand falls away as Peter turns to the suit and twists the arc reactor into the chestplate, waiting until it clicks firmly into place. A light blue glow emanates from the reactor, pulsing like a heart truly would. Tony can’t help the rush of pride that swells and crashes over him like an ocean wave. A powerful force to be reckoned with. 

He slings an arm around Peter’s shoulders and runs his eyes over the suit. It looks brand new. All the metal is polished and gleaming, paint unchipped. There’s not a single scratch to be seen. 

He can’t believe it. Peter could’ve done anything else with his time here in the lab and yet he did this. He took his time and he committed to fixing the suit. Tony knows how excruciating the work can be. But Peter never uttered a single complaint because he saw something in it worth saving. 

Tony will never be able to thank him enough for that. 

But he can try. 

“Say, uh, what do you say we go out tonight?” Tony suggests. He looks down at Peter. “As Iron Man and Spider-Man?” 

Peter blinks, uncomprehending. “Wait, are you serious?” he breathes in disbelief. 

“No, I’m Tony,” he replies. “Yeah, of course I’m serious. You got your suit?” 

Peter nods and grins widely, beaming. “Yeah, yeah I do.” 

Tony smiles. “Then suit up.” 

-

Tony counts two guards outside the main entrance and only one posted at the back entrance, each one armed with AR-15’s. 

The mini-drone Peter deployed, which fed Tony and him the footage of the warehouse, flies back to where he’s perched beside Tony on a rooftop several yards away. The drone fits itself into Peter’s spider emblem and Tony says, “What do you say, kid? You take the back, I take the front?” 

Peter blows out a breath. “Let’s do it.” 

Peter leaps off the rooftop and Tony has a near heart attack, for a second, but Peter lands and rolls to his feet, taking off around the perimeter. Tony launches himself off the edge and flies to the main entrance, landing in front of the two guards, who blanch in horror. 

“Close your mouths, you’ll catch flies,” Tony snarks and blasts the weapons out of their hands. 

They clatter to the ground. The guards shout. Tony clenches his fist and shoots a taser disc at each guard. Electricity sizzles in the air. Their bodies spasm, eyes rolling back and then they crumple against the concrete. 

“Spidey, how we doing?” Tony asks. 

Over the comms, Peter grunts and then there’s the sound of metal crunching and a high pitched squeaking. Tony winces at the feedback. Peter says, _“I’m in.”_

“Alright, let’s recon first, we’ll attack second, copy?” 

_“Copy.”_

Tony lasers the handle off the door and it clinks to the ground. He opens the door and then closes it. His bootjets click faintly against the concrete as he sneaks behind the walls of crates and into a dark corner. His eyes catches on movement overhead. FRIDAY zooms in to see Peter crawling along the wall and situating himself into a corner ten feet above the ground. 

Tony peers his head around the corner of a stack of crates. In the center of the warehouse there are men in plastic ponchos lined along metal tables decorating with bubbling chemicals in glass beakers being heated over a flame and drugs being packed into little baggies or packaged, all wrapped with a neat little metaphorical bow. Along the walls stand at least a dozen guards, six on each side. 

Tony catches sight of who he assumes to be the head honcho: a fat man with a black mustache in a purple tracksuit flanked by two other men in the same garb, both armed. He walks between the tables and peers over people’s shoulders to inspect the product. 

“FRIDAY, run facial recog,” Tony orders quietly. 

_“That’s Ivan,”_ Peter replies over the comms. _“He peddles drugs into low income schools and housing projects. I’ve been trying to get him on drugs for weeks.”_

“Well, looks like today’s the day. So who’s doing the dramatic entrance: me or you?” 

In reply, Spider-Man shoots a web and swings into the light, landing at the forefront of the tables, opposite Ivan. 

“Oh, hey guys!” Peter quips. Then, with faux shock and disappointment, he draws out, “He-ey, didn’t your parents ever tell you not to deal drugs?” 

Tony hears the clicking of weapons turning on Peter. Bullets start to fly. Peter flips upwards to the ceiling. 

The men in ponchos run screaming for the exit. Tony steps out from behind the stack of crates. “FRIDAY, deploy weapons magnet.” 

“Copy that, Boss.” 

From the back of his armor, a weapons magnet shoots out and hovers through the air before landing in the center of the room. It self activates and suddenly, all the bullets in the air flock to the supercharged magnet. The guns all fly into a pile over the magnet. The men stare at their empty hands in shock. 

It’s a fistfight now. 

Peter takes down four easy, flipping and kicking and throwing punches. Tony flies overhead and lands in front of Ivan, his face glowing with the light of the repulsor Tony raises. 

“Sorry, Ivan,” Tony cracks. “But I got friends in high places who would be very interested in you.” 

Much to his credit, Ivan doesn’t try to fight back. But he is visibly angered, his face red as a tomato and his mouth curled into a frown. His two henchmen raise shaking hands into the air, their eyes wide. 

Tony launches cuffs at them both and their hands bind together. Tony whirls Ivan around and cuffs him personally. Peter is working his way through the unarmed guards. He’s only got three left. 

With Ivan having surrendered, Tony shoves him down against the wall and then hovers over to the other three, one of whom Peter is fighting. Tony blasts the remaining two with his repulsor. Peter is breathing heavy over the comms. 

“You know, I had that,” he insists. 

“Uh huh, sure you did,” Tony replies and they flee the scene before the cops show up. 

-

They’re on the same rooftop as earlier, Peter wanting to stick around to make sure the cops actually _do_ show up and do their due diligence: gathering evidence, formally arresting Ivan and his crew, reading them all their Miranda rights.

Tony has the suit in sentry mode behind both of them and Peter has the lower half of his face exposed so he can motormouth his way through recalling the fight they just had. 

“And then-and then I was like-” he drops his voice an octave “-’hey guys, didn’t your parents tell you not to deal drugs’? And then they aimed their guns at me, and they were like pfft and you were like ‘FRIDAY, use the fridge magnet!’ And then-” 

Tony raises a finger. “Okay, hold on there, it is not a fridge magnet. It’s actually a supercharged, electromagnet capable of-” 

“Yeah, but fridge magnet sounds way cooler,” Peter says and that’s the acknowledgement he gives to Tony’s correction before he continues to power through his recollection. “So then they were like ‘what the hell, what happened to our weapons’ and then I was like ‘okay time to beat all you guys up’ and you flew over to Ivan and you were like ‘whoa, hang on buddy, where do you think you’re going’?” 

Tony chuckles. “Hang on, I did not say that.” 

Peter laughs. “Yeah, you did, and it was awesome.” 

“With FRIDAY as my witness, I refute that claim, this is slander.” 

“Mr. Stark, I’m saying you did something cool, not bad, so it’s not technically slander.” 

“Uh-huh. ‘Technically’. Sure,” Tony replies, nodding. 

Peter lips twitch into a smile. Their conversation dies out as they survey the scene below them, red and blue lights flashing, police officers swarming around the warehouse like bees around a hive. The night air is chill and despite the commotion behind them, it’s relatively quiet. Which is to say, it’s city quiet, which means there’s all kinds of low level noise around them. Cars honking in the distance, sirens screaming somewhere far off. 

It’s nice. 

“Can I ask you something?” 

Tony turns his head to Peter, who yanks the mask off his head. His eyes are full of emotion, not good or bad. 

“Yeah, of course, Pete, what is it?” Tony asks, brows drawing together in serious concern. 

Peter chews on his lower lip and glances down at the ledge beneath them both and then at Tony. Hesitant, he slowly asks, “Are you...are you okay, Mr. Stark? Like really okay?” 

Tony lets the question linger and settle. It burrows itself somewhere inside Tony’s heart and finds a home there. And he finds himself thinking about all the times Peter was there for him. Through panic attacks or during rainstorms and sunrises and starry skies. Peter was there for it all. 

Tony scoots along the rooftop’s edge and then folds Peter into an embrace, one hand in Peter’s hair, the other on his back. Peter nestles his face into the crook of Tony’s shoulder, warm breaths falling from his lips. Tony feels warm with affectionate as he presses a kiss into Peter’s hair and thinks he has an answer. 

So, with their arms wrapped around each other, Tony finally replies. 

“Yeah, kid. I’m really okay.”


	6. Chapter Six

“You gonna be alright?” 

Peter looks up at where Tony, in the Iron Man armor, is hovering a couple feet over the rooftop, poised and ready to fly back to the compound. 

Peter gives him a thumbs up and shoots him a small smile. “I’ll be fine, Mr. Stark, thanks.” 

“No problem,” Tony replies, voice tinged with static. “See you tomorrow, I’m gonna drop all your stuff off after a board meeting, that cool?” 

He nods. “Yeah, yeah, that’s cool.” 

“Sweet. See you tomorrow, Spidey.” 

And then he takes off into the night, bootjets streaking across the sky like a shooting star. 

Peter smiles to himself as he turns back to watch the procession play out in front of him. The cop cars are slowly driving away, sans the lights and sirens, leaving behind the crime scene technicians to bag evidence and take pictures. He’s watching them, but not really paying attention. 

He’s thinking about Tony. He’s been so happy lately. Nothing like those first couple weeks after Germany and Peter’s disastrous homecoming night. He smiles a lot more. Laughs a lot more too. Peter distantly wonders what has changed. If it has something to do with Ms. Potts and their engagement or if time is just a great healer, like May always says. 

Whatever the case, Tony is happier, and that’s all Peter needs to know. 

He stands to his feet and tugs the mask down over his head. His HUD alights in neon blue, green and red colors. He sighs contentedly. 

“Come on, Karen,” he says. “Let’s go home.” 

“Sure thing. Mapping a course out now.” 

Peter waits a second for the course to be completed, his route appearing as a blue line and himself, as a red dot. He flips off the roof, shoots a web, and swings off in the direction Karen mapped out. 

The city rushes by beneath him, a cacophony of cars honking and passing by beneath him. The blinding city lights blur as he moves southward along Manhattan, through Times Square and the business districts, towards Queens. His heart pumps against his suit, muscles only a little achy. But in about half an hour, he’ll be saying goodnight to May and then laying in bed in no time. 

As he approaches the Queensboro bridge, he begins to slow when he sees that the bridge is closed off and emergency vehicles are stationed on the bridge. Fire engines, an ambulance and a multitude of squad cars. 

Peter feels unsettled, confusion causing him to stop on a nearby rooftop overlooking the bridge. He lets himself catch his breath a moment. 

“Karen, what’s going on?” he asks. 

“I’m not sure. Would you like me to tap into the police radio?” 

“Yeah, yes, please.” 

There’s a brief burst of static being scrambled in his ears and he winces before a voice begins to filter through. 

_“We got a call about a jumper about thirty minutes ago,”_ an officer says into Peter’s ear. _“Lady tried to talk her down but she jumped anyways. We got a team dredging the river for her body now.”_

__

__

_“Did the girl happen to say what her name was before she jumped?”_ says someone else, their voice rough with a heavy New York accent. 

_“Nah, just jumped.”_

Peter didn’t even realize he was holding his breath until he releases one, the tightness in his lungs easing. His eyes slip from the bridge to the sandy banks on the river, where there are several men in scuba gear dragging a pale, limp body onto shore. They turn the body over and gently lay it down on the shore. Karen zooms in on the girl’s face and immediately begins to run facial recognition but it’s too late. Peter has already fallen to his knees like a puppet with his strings cut. 

Her lips are blue. Her long blonde hair is wet and stringy. Her eyes are closed but he remembers how strikingly green they were, remembers the pain circling her irises. 

Ally. 

The voices keep filtering through Peter’s comm system but he doesn’t hear or process what they’re saying. It all fades into white noise as the world seems to stretch out and tilt at the edges. A burning nausea crawls upward into his throat and Peter barely has time to fumble for the edge of his mask and peel it over his lips before he bends over and vomits into the gravel. 

His body shakes as he empties his stomach and then dry heaves until there’s nothing left. His breathing quickens. He pants desperately for air, heart pounding painfully against his sternum. _It’s going to come through,_ he thinks. 

Against the chill, heat sweeps through him, his limbs tingling with it. He feels dizzy and weak and it’s hard to breathe, like a vice is clamping down on his lungs and squeezing all the air out of them and he can’t get it in fast enough. 

Unable to kneel any longer, he rolls over onto his side and curls in around the knife that feels like it’s been twisted into his stomach, which throbs and throbs and he feels like he might be sick again and his fingers tremble as he clutches his abdomen and his heart pounds dangerously fast and hard and for a second, he has the fleeting thought that he’s gonna die here until he registers bits and pieces of Karen’s voice telling him he’s having a panic attack and that, at least, makes sense in the grand scheme of things. 

It faintly occurs to him that he may be in shock. His mind isn’t processing but his body’s noticed that something is horribly wrong and it’s reacting before he can. 

Ally is gone. She followed through, she did it. She jumped off the bridge and the water filled her lungs and now she’s gone. She’s never going to breathe again, smile again, laugh again. Never going to do anything ever again. 

And it’s his fault. 

If he hadn’t been so caught up in the drug bust, if he’d left even minutes earlier, maybe he could’ve saved her. He could’ve gotten to her in time. Could’ve swung right underneath the bridge and caught her before she even hit the water. 

This realization hits him worse than the realization that Ally is gone for good and his breathing hitches as he cries, sucking in cold gulps of air as tears stream down his face beneath the mask. 

“Peter,” Karen says, “I need verbal confirmation of-” 

He hastily rips the mask off his head and casts it aside. His body spasms with loud, ugly sobs. Everything hurts so bad and the guilt is flooding in, crashing over him in waves. He hasn’t felt this much guilt since the night Ben died and the excruciating weeks that followed. 

He just wants to go home. 

At some point, his cries begin to quiet. He sniffles a little and tries not to imagine Ally’s parents they never met. Tries not to imagine if they’ve been told about their daughter or if they’ll even care. Tries not to wonder if there will be an announcement at her school tomorrow. If students will mourn, if any of them will attend her funeral. 

He can’t think about any of that. If he does, then he’ll never get himself home. 

Slowly, he pushes himself onto his knees and grabs his mask. He tugs it over his head and then stands, his legs shaky beneath him. For a second, as he walks to the edge, he thinks about throwing himself off it and not bothering to catch himself. 

He doesn’t do that. 

Instead, he leaps off it and swings away from the Queensboro Bridge, along the new route Karen thankfully mapped out for him. He tries to clear his mind and not think about Ally’s pale, lifeless body. He can dwell on it - on her - later from the safety of his own bedroom. 

He swings underneath a nearby bridge and into Queens and it’s ten minutes later when he finally arrives at the apartment building and lands on the fire escape. The metal rattles threateningly beneath his feet. He opens the window and clambers inside, shutting it behind him and checking the lock. 

Unfortunately, May is home, and her voice is cheery as it rings out from the kitchen. 

“Oh, hi, honey! How was-” 

He doesn’t even realize he’s marched across the floor and slammed the door until the noise echoes sharply in his ears. The guilt is immediate but everything else is rushing back in too and it’s all too much to bear so he collapses into the corner and draws his knees to his chest, his arms around himself like he can physically hold himself together, considering he’s completely losing it emotionally. 

He cries again. He cries like he did the night Ben died. He wonders if Ally will haunt him in his dreams the way Ben does. If her warm blood will run slick over his hands along with Bens. If he’ll be forced to live through failed rescue scenarios, if she will slip through his fingers every single time. 

He knows it. Knows it like he did in the flickering, shot out lights of the bodega Ben bled out in. He knows he’ll spend the rest of his life on that bridge, trying to save Ally, trying to think his way out. 

He doesn’t know how much time passes. May doesn’t come in but he hears the hallway floorboards creaking through the drywall as she paces back and forth. He hears her talking quietly to someone. On the phone, probably. 

It could’ve been minutes or hours or an eternity later when there’s a light knocking on his bedroom door. Peter doesn’t reply. Just sniffles. 

A second later the door creaks open. There are footsteps but not May’s. Hers are light and hasty and these new ones fall heavy and slow. Deliberate. Calculated. 

Tony. 

Peter buries his head further into his lap because he doesn’t want to do this, he doesn’t want to talk to Tony right now. He just wants to be left alone. 

The footsteps stop and then he hears fabric shifting as Tony crouches down. He’s in front of him now. Peter can smell the expensive, minty cologne he always wears. 

“Hey, there,” Tony murmurs, low and gentle. “How you doing, Pete?” 

Peter just wants him to go away. He just wants to be alone but he barely has it in him to talk. He feels so weak and tired. 

Tony gives a stifled sigh. “I can’t help you if you don’t talk to me,” he says. “Can you come out from there?” 

Peter doesn’t want to talk but he can lift his head, at least. He can do that. 

He raises his head out of his lap. His neck aches. He can only imagine how miserable he must look right now: face blotchy, eyes red and puffy, lashes wet. 

Tony’s lips twist into a smile that comes off like a grimace. “There he is,” he says. “There you are.” 

Normally, Peter hates being coddled but right now, he doesn’t have it in him to protest, to fight. It took everything in him to get himself home and he doesn’t have anything left. 

“I’m gonna sit next to you, so you scoot over, okay?” 

Peter nods minutely and moves over. Tony settles down beside him with a groan, his back against the wall. 

Silence bleeds and stretches, uncertainty hanging in the air. If Peter closes his eyes and listens carefully, he can hear Tony’s heartbeat, thumping steadily against his sternum. 

“I heard about what happened,” he says, finally. “With that girl on the bridge. I know you tried to save her.” 

Peter shifts awkwardly. He hears Ally’s stuttering voice echo in his ears. 

_“Every-everyone hates me. At home. At-at school. All my friends abandoned me and I’m ju-I’m all alone. I’m all alone, Spider-Man and I just-I can’t do it anymore.”_

He can’t do this anymore either. 

Whatever remaining strength he has deserts him as he leans his head against Tony’s shoulder and slips an arm over his abdomen. He cries gently into Tony’s shirt, tears damp against the fabric. He’s surprised they even still come, he’s so spent. 

Tony wraps an arm around Peter and holds him close against his side. He’s shaking again. 

He sniffles. His voice quivers. “I...I don’t know...what-what to do. How do-how do I get through this, Mr. Stark?” 

Tony is silent. Contemplative. Everything is unbearable and Peter begs, he’s begging now. 

“Tony, please. I don’t-I don’t know what to do.” 

Peter closes his eyes and buries his face into Tony’s shirt when another moment passes and he still doesn’t have an answer. Maybe it was stupid of him to ask. Maybe Tony doesn’t know any more than he does. 

But everything seems to slow, the whole world narrowing down, when Tony finally does speak. 

“Peter...what you’re going through, it doesn’t last forever.” 

Slowly, Peter blinks, his brow furrowing in confusion. He lifts his head, gaze bleary, as he stares at Tony, uncomprehending. 

“What did you say?” Peter asks, voice rusted. 

Tony looks at him with sad eyes but there’s something glimmering there. Something like hope. 

“You just gotta keep holding on,” Tony says. “That’s all that you can do.” 

The words are tinged with familiarity. Peter searches through his memory and then he remembers, the realization trickling in like river water over stones because he’s heard these words before. 

And not only has he heard them before but he’s said them before. That night, on the bridge, with Ally. 

_“I know what it feels like to be alone. To think you’re the only one who feels a certain way because the bad things keep happening. And I know I don’t know you very well, Ally, but I want you to know that you’re never as alone as you think you are. And I know it doesn’t seem like it, sitting here, but you’re really brave for telling me all that. That was so awesome what you did by telling me that.”_

_“Thank you,” Ally whispers, her lips barely parting._

_Peter goes on. “And I know there are going to be nights and days when it feels like it’s not going to get any better but it does. I promise it does. You just gotta..you just gotta keep holding on. Whatever it is you’re going through...it doesn’t last forever.”_

Something indiscernible stirs inside Peter’s chest. It’s strange and powerful and a little painful and a tear trails down his cheek as Tony goes on, like he didn’t just echo Peter’s own words back to him. 

“You know who taught me that?” Tony says and he swallows hard, his voice wet and tight when he murmurs, “You did.” 

A shattered breath falls from Peter’s lips, his heart writhing as Tony continues. 

“You saved me from myself.” A wave of sadness crests and breaks over them, crashing in the stillness, Tony’s voice awash with it. “And you were there for me when I had nobody else. You gave me hope and helped me see the light. And I’m proof that it’s all going to be okay, Pete, you know why?” 

Peter sniffles. He tastes salt from tears on his lips. “Tell me,” he whispers. 

“Cause everyone knows no storm lasts forever. And the sunrises after they’re over are always the best ones.” 

Peter smiles tearily and then embraces Tony again, something like peace settling like a soft blanket over his shoulders. He nestles in to Tony’s side and listens to his heartbeat thumping through his shirt, lets himself be lulled into a sense of comfort by it. 

“Thank you,” he murmurs, so quietly he almost thinks Tony didn’t hear him. 

But he did. 

And all he says is, “You’d do it for me.” 

-

Tony spends his night at the apartment while May is out working her graveyard shift at the hospital. 

Once Peter calmed, he changed into pajamas and then went to bed. Tony didn’t leave his side until Peter fell asleep and then, once his breathing evened out, Tony slept on the living room couch. It wasn’t the most comfortable sleeping place but it was better than a cot in an Afghan cave so, he’d take a living room couch any day of the week. 

As the sun rises, the light filtering through the curtains, Tony stirs, blearily rubs sleep from his eyes. Dust motes float through the air, illuminated by the sun. 

With aching muscles and a tired groan, he stands to his feet and goes to prattle around in the kitchen. He manages to find black coffee buried away in a cabinet and checks the expiration date to find that it’s still good. He brews it in the pot and then pours himself a mug before going to settle down into one of two folding chairs on the cramped balcony. 

The view isn’t great. The cost of being in the middle class, he supposes. Not that he’d ever scorn anyone in lower income brackets. But if he lifts his head just a little, he can just manage to see the sun slowly edging its way over the horizon in the distance. 

He sips at his coffee and looks at the sky painted in hues of orange and yellow and a faint, soft pink. 

He turns his head when he hears the door to the balcony being opened. Peter steps out with a blanket drawn around his shoulders, his hair tousled and fluffy from sleep. His cheeks are still a little blotchy from last night, eyes half lidded. For a second, Tony worries he might be sleep walking. But Peter must be with it because, in a voice drenched with tiredness, he mutters, “Mornin’, Mr. Stark.” 

Tony chuckles softly. “I think we can do Tony now, wouldn’t you say?” 

Peter rubs at his eyes and yawns, mouth stretching wide, eyes squeezing closed. He sighs. “Okay.” 

He sits down into the other chair and then leans his head against Tony’s shoulder, both of their eyes focused on the sun cresting over the horizon. 

“Thank you, Tony,” Peter says. “For everything.” 

Tony smiles contentedly, heart swelling with affection. “Anything for you, kid.” 

And when Peter smiles, Tony swears it’s like the sun comes out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this fic is done, i can die in peace now
> 
> i would leave a more sappy author's note but i'm tired so all im gonna say is that this story has been a wild, emotional ride and i'm sad it's over but happy to move on to new projects and know that i finished, not one, but two fics. yay me. 
> 
> so anyways, yeah, please leave a kudos or a comment letting me know what you guys thought? talk to you guys later. bye!


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